Study week on the econometric approach to development planning

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Monograph

Identifikator:: 1824422792

URN:: urn:nbn:de:zbw-retromon-217476

Document type:: Monograph

Title:: Study week on the econometric approach to development planning

Place of publication:: Amsterdam [u.a.]

Publisher:: North-Holland Publ. Co. [u.a.]

Year of publication:: 1965

Scope:: XLVII, 1259 S.; graph. Darst.

Digitisation:: 2022

Collection:: Economics Books

Usage license:: Get license information via the feedback formular.

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Document type:: Monograph

Structure type:: Chapter

Title:: Econometric analysis for assessing the efficacy of public investment / R. Dorman, Harvard University - Cambridge, Mass. - U.S.A.

Collection:: Economics Books

202 PONTIFICIAE ACADEMIAE SCIENTIARVM SCRIPTA VARIA - 2° investment. The result of the analysis will be, not a single benefit-cost ratio with some marginal comments, but model of the investment whose performance can be ascertained in respect to any targets that higher policy may dictate. Is such an ambitious mode of analysis really practicable? [ believe it is, and should like to submit some technical sug- gestions for its implementation. The critical sticking point is the various performance func- tions which are very complicated, unknown, and hard to ascertain. In most cases there is a great deal of pertinent technical knowledge, but it is not in the proper form. Consider, for example, one of the more favorable cases: the relationship between the height of a dam and the amount of irrigation water it can provide. In the first instance the height of the dam controls the amount of water that can be impounded in the reservoir behind it. Given any height, a hydrologist can, by studying the contours of the land to be flooded, estimate the the volume of water that can be retained. By making such studies for a number of dam heights he can generate a functional relationship between height and contents. Because of irregul- arities in contours this is likely to be a very complicated fun- ction but, generally, reasonable smooth and simple approxima- tions to it can be found. But this is only a half-way step because the relationship between reservoir capacity and usable irrigation water supply — «yield » for short — is even more intricate. There are at least two complicating features. One is that the reservoir may not fill annually. As a general rule, the larger the reservoir, the lower the probability that it will fill in any year. Therefore, although usable water supply is an increasing function of ca- pacity up to a point, it increases at a diminshing rate. The other complicating feature has to do with timing. If the annual inflow to the reservoir is concentrated in a rainy season that does not coincide with the time of year at which irrigation water is demanded then, clearly, the contents of the reservoir "31 Dorfman - pag. 16

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